Various designs of blood pumps are known for pumping the blood of a patient to assist a failing heart in the pumping. Particularly, implantable, magnetically driven, rotary ventricular assist devices (VADs) are blood pumps which may, if desired, be implanted in the patient to provide assistance in the pumping for hearts that are afflicted with congestive heart failure or the like. Examples of such pumps are rotary type blood pumps as disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,688,861, 6,120,537, 6,234,998, 6,234,772 and 6,234,635.
By this invention, a blood pump impeller is provided, which impeller is magnetizable to a high degree, and which may be manufactured as a single piece, thereby eliminating assembly procedures and hermeticity concerns, which concerns are associated with a traditional approach of placing magnetic materials within an impeller casing, and laser welding closure caps to the casing, as in certain prior art techniques.